Building Dept. bustles during crisis

RITI EURT » While the coronavirus pandemic has forced many businesses to close or municipal governments to halt nonessential services, the city’s building department is just as busy as ever.

Building Commissioner Mark Barbadoro said the recent crisis has tested the resiliency of the department, which has witnessed a recent “frenzy” of permit requests, an uptick in nuisance complaints, and several other logistical hurdles in recent months.

Despite the hurdles, Barbadoro gives his staff members a passing grade.

“I’m really proud of the way the building department pulled together and managed things,” Barbadoro said.

“Each time we’re met with adversity, we just plow through it and figure out how to make it work.”

The Building and Zoning Department, located at 166 Boulder Drive, has remained closed to the public since March, and staff members have been processing permits remotely and performing inspections.

After the virus began to spread across the state, the

department closed its doors for nearly a month.

This meant both permitting and inspections were on hold for some time.

When the department was given approval to reopen, Barbadoro said, things looked very different for the city.

“It was a whole new experience for all of us,” Barbadoro said.

To streamline the permitting process and eliminate face-toface interactions, the city created a new online permitting portal for residents and developers to use.

“We had to be sure we could still service the public behind closed doors,” he said.

Barbadoro said about 5% of permits were applied for online prior to the pandemic, compared

to the roughly 95% of permits requested virtually now.

This is the preferred method for the city, he said.

Fitchburg will still accept paper copies of permit applications via mail or at the red mailbox at City Hall.

Regular inspections are continuing, and still required, unless there are extenuating circumstances.

Barbadoro said the city worked to ensure employees had the proper protective equipment for the inspections to continue. Inspections mostly continued on as normal, he said.

Setting up the portal and preparing employees to work remotely during the pandemic was no easy task, Barbadoro said.

“We were dealing with multiple difficulties,” he said. “Configuring the software, learning how to set up working from home for half of the staff, it was a massive IT struggle.”

Despite the pandemic putting

permitting on hold for several weeks, Barbadoro said the city saw an explosion of permits being pulled when things began opening up.

“At first there was nothing, but then there was a frenzy,” Barbadoro said.

As of Wednesday, the city had handed out 3,929 permits for various types of work in the last 12 months.

When compared to numbers from the previous year, there has only been a 7.2% decrease in the amount of permits issued, according to Barbadoro.

At first, Barbadoro said, the permits being pulled came in all shapes and sizes.

However, it wasn’t long before he noticed a trend was forming.

“I’m getting the sense that people are at home now trying to make improvements to their environment because they’re no longer able to escape it,” he said. “They’re looking around and saying, ‘Boy I could really use a

new roof or a new deck.’”

Home improvement projects aren’t uncommon in the summer months, but there was a noticeable increase this year, he said.

One of the biggest challenges during the pandemic was keeping up with the demand from restaurants and other businesses adjusting to local, state, and federal requirements, Barbadoro said.

For example, several businesses needed to apply for a temporary outdoor cafe license to create outdoor seating environments for their customers.

Additionally, Barbadoro said he’s seen a large increase in nuisance complaints across the city in the past few months.

“As people looked around and sought ways to improve their own living environment, they also looked beyond to their neighbor’s property,” Barbardoro said.

Since residents are at home

more often, they are more likely to notice things they dislike in the neighborhood. Barbadoro said most complaints were related to minor incidents such as individuals allegedly operating illegal repair shops in residential areas.

Other complaints were related to noise or the appearance of certain properties.

“We had a big increase in need and a decrease in resources, and faced complexities in terms of how we could interact with the public,” Barbadoro said. “It hasn’t been easy … but the building department really stepped up.”

Barbadoro said he’s hopeful the department will be able to reopen to the public in the coming months, adding that people often need the personal interactions.

“The day-to-day exchanges have obviously changed,” he said “Hopefully we will be open to the public in the future.”